Hiya campers! Ah, you can feel it in the wind; fall is upon us. Fall’s a great time for editing . . . your garden. My big problem is that I make my plants too happy or they overgrow their spots or pots. While the Heuchera with the big showy leaves catch most collectors’ eyes, there’s another class we need to meet, The City Series. The term, “genetic dwarf” gets a lot of play in our industry, and it truly applies to this series. We’ve used tiny Heuchera with one half inch wide leaves and the cutest carmine flowers in our stable of genetics. The “tinies,” and there are a few, tend to have many crowns and a mounding habit. Bring in the Terra Nova breeding team to take these tiny charmers and make a whole line of more diminutive plants in this group. Most every plant has leaves two inches wide, many crowns and scads of proportionate flowers. Many are rebloomers as well and all are hardy in the USDA climate zones of four to nine. The small parents give these plants great drought tolerance. We gave them disease resistance, many foliage-color options and charming “coral bells.”
Now the question is, “where do you plant us?” Easy. Anywhere they fit. Think “as a ground cover” and your mind starts working. Front of the border. Sure. Containers? Now we’re cooking. These are well-adapted to the stresses of container growth. Got a cool bonsai pot? A perfect place to plunk a plant from the City Series. Rock or crevice garden? Perfect. They will behave. How about one in a four-inch round terra-cotta pot with a bow and a birthday card? So nice. A great plant to interplant with ferns and be a star in a woodland garden. A very compliant plant, so let’s highlight a few. Download Terra Nova’s catalog – the new, dragon one, to see all the members of the city series.
Here’s the link to our 2027 catalog, and it’s a BIG NEW release! This is a big launch for us for a familiar genus with an incredible new form-Fyre Wing™ and in colors! Linked below, is a colorful and informative magazine. You will learn about the ways of our breeding and witness the remarkable introductions we have introduced over the last thirty-four years. Besides, there’s a lot of groovy pictures, container combos and especially gigantic installations in Australia and China that use our plants on a huge scale.
Tight mounds of silvery-purple leaves set forth white flowers on dark stems. 'Shanghai' had the best foliage through the worst winter in the last 40 years at the TERRA NOVA® test gardens. Ice, snow and rain didn't faze it! As Shanghai is a beacon to China, so Heuchera 'Shanghai' can be an inviting beacon of metallic silver to your garden. Reblooms all summer. Hardy in USDA zones four to nine. The flowering stems grow to ten inches high by twelve inches wide by eighteen inches high in their first season. Partial to full sun for best flowering, blooming from June to October! Butterflies love them! The pictured plant yielded twenty-five flower stalks! It can bloom and rebloom from May to September under ideal conditions.
Frosty plum-purple leaves in spring and fall make a full mound of evergreen foliage. Silvery-pink flower spikes rise twenty-six inches above the soil, and the plant frequently reblooms. Foliage is silver in summer and winter. H. villosa breeding gives it the bigger habit. Can rebloom all summer. Hardy in USDA zones four to nine. The flowering stems grow to twelve inches high by eighteen inches wide by twenty-six inches high in their first season. Partial to full sun for best flowering, blooming from May to October! Butterflies and bees love them! It can bloom and rebloom from May to September under ideal conditions.
A great summer shade accent, Heuchera 'Tokyo' surprises you with its show-off red blooms in July. This large tight mound of lime green foliage has proven amazingly tough – beating out diseases and heat. The flowers arrive in July and last through October in Oregon. Hardy in USDA zones four to ten. The flower stems grow to fifteen inches high by twenty-one inches wide by ten inches high (before flowering) in their first season. Full sun to partial shade, blooming from July to October. Loved by many bees and hummers too!
Dan Heims is an award-winning author and plant nerd who lectures throughout the world. He was recently honored by The American Horticultural Society with the Luther Burbank Breeding Award, as well as the Perennial Plant Association’s Award of Merit. He was likewise honored in receiving the Royal Horticultural Society’s Reginald Cory Cup for advancements in breeding. A 2025 Silver Laurel Award was granted by GardenComm International for Terra Nova’s unusual 2025 Commercial Catalog.
Dark, moody hues can create the prefect fall palette in the garden. This on-trend can be especially fun for spooky season decorating.
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